Page 269 - UAE Truncal States

Chapter Seven

experienced fast growth everywhere in the Gulf, but also coincided
with an incident which was immediately turned to the benefit of
Dubai. In 1902 a law introducing very high customs dues for imports
and exports going through Persian ports drove away the prospe rous
entrepot trade from that coast and especially from the then dominant
port of Lingah at the entrance to the Gulf proper. Goods from India
for the Trucial Coast were consequently shipped direct to Dubai.
This port developed not only into a distribution centre for trade with
the interior, particularly the Buraimi oasis, but also became increas­
ingly important as a port where goods from India which came by
sailing vessel or by regular steamer service (weekly since June 1904)
were re-exported to Persia and other neighbouring countries.
Among the people who tried their hand at becoming financiers or
owners of pearling boats or were otherwise involved in the entre­
preneur aspects of the industry in Dubai, were a number of minor
members of the ruling families of other Trucial Shaikhdoms, some of
whom were biding their time until a moment when they could take
over as headman or Ruler at home.9 It was probably the economic
opportunities of the day, rather than a particular attitude on the part
of Dubai’s ruling shaikh in favouring certain individuals in dynastic
quarrels up and down the coast, which made Dubai so frequently the
temporary home for exiles.
As has been shown above, the pearling industry had continued to
be increasingly profitable for participants at all levels until the final
years of the 1920s. Thus almost every family in the Trucial States
experienced a gradual—or in some cases a dramatic—rise in buying
power. During the first decade of this century a very large share of the
imports which filled the stalls in the suq and the baskets of pedlars
continued to be brought into Dubai, from where they were shipped
by coastal craft or camel to the other parts. This meant that the ports
on the Persian coast, which had traditionally served as entrepot
ports for the few wares which the families living in the Trucial Stales
expected to have either from India itself or from the Indian market of
imports, were replaced by Dubai. Thus the bulk of the re-exports in
that early period of Dubai’s mercantile boom after 1902 went to
neighbouring Arab shaikhdoms.
Already a number of merchants from the restricted, beleaguered
southern Persian ports had moved to Dubai, followed by craftsmen,
traders and pearl divers. The latter found ready employment and
being usually of Arab origin, built up a new existence with their
families. The merchants did not necessarily sever their ties with their
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